


Confidence

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 1) i am bi-ace, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen, I'm Sorry, I'm actually happy I wrote this, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Incoherent Thoughts, Introspection, No Dialogue, No Romance, Self-Hatred, Swearing, also Jughead is bi-ace because, and 2) he might end up with a girl but, he totally has/had/has had a crush on Archie, it needed to get out okay, jughead kinda hates himself sometimes sorry, okay I'm not sorry, only very vague tho, the author is projecting a fuckton, this might just be me rambling oh well, uhhhhh, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:43:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9628523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: Jughead is very confident in who he is. Not comfortable, necessarily, but confident.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi, hi hi, so....... yeah, I'm in this trash bin now.  
> I have a billion thoughts about asexual Jughead and how much it means to me that he exists and it's canon and the majority of fics about him will be tagged with "asexual character" because it's real and for the first time I'll feel like I get it (I did keep myself awake last night kinda imploding with excitement and disbelief over it), BUT this fic is like 100% projection. It's pretty depressing too. Actually it's super depressing.  
> Read at your own risk, and all.

Jughead is very confident in who he is. Not comfortable, necessarily, but confident. Without a flicker of doubt. He knows he's asexual like he knows the alphabet, or like he knows Archie Andrews' address. These are seared into his mind, things that, if you challenged him, he wouldn't forget if he tried.

  
It's not easy, no. And at times he hates it, hates himself, wishes he was normal all while knowing he would hate it. He mutters "Why can't I have sex like normal people?" even as the thought repulses him.

  
There are dark, dark nights, like velvet blankets that muffle all sound, where no one sees the blood on his biceps from scratching at his skin, wishing he could get out of it.

  
There are hot, angry tears that have splashed onto all of his pillows, and more tears on the tabletop of his seat at Pop's. He wonders if they're as painful to wipe up as they are to cry. He wonders if, when Pop or one of his servers takes a sponge to his table when he finally leaves, they can taste the salt like he can, on the tip of his tongue and in the corners of his mouth and in the way his eyes blur.

  
There's a constant, profuse ache in his chest, one that simmers, lingers, forever there. One that he never talks about, one that blocks his throat when he tries to talk. One that choked him up when he meant to tell Archie, that clogged his windpipe when he opened his mouth to bring it up to Betty, to his sister, to his fucking dog.

  
His mirror knows his secret because he says it over and over and over, hoping, wishing,  _ pleading  _ that one day there will be a real person in front of him, instead of his own tired reflection.

  
_ Hate _ , he hisses as he kicks his wall,  _ hate _ , he repeats as he punches his pillow,  _ hate _ , echoes in his mind as he screams in frustration and throws his chair across the room. It splinters. He tells his dad he slipped. 

  
_ Hate _ , he whispers through tears that slip through his closed eyes as the dark descends on him again in the form of nighttime, tears that will stain his cheeks and make his skin tight when he awakens, but he doesn't wipe them away.

  
There's the ever present pang of being reminded, every moment, that he's not normal, that he's just a little bit off, like his mind is two tectonic plates that grind against each other in the wrong way. And when he looks at Betty and thinks  _ pretty  _ and looks at Archie and thinks  _ beautiful  _ he hates himself more. Just one more thing that's so totally and completely fucked up in his brain.

  
There's the knowledge that he can't say it, not just that he physically can't get the words out but that even if he could, well...he couldn't. Because no one would get it. It matters; it matters to him, because it's who he is, but he would rather choke down fifty more conversations about his nonexistent sex life and all the hot girls he hasn't seen than try to explain this. This, this sexuality that feels more like a plague than an orientation, that sometimes feels more like a lie than he would like it to.

  
_ Asexual _ , he says, his face pressed up against his mirror, and his breath fogs up the glass. He breathes out until his face is covered in condensation in his reflection, and says it boldly.  _ Asexual _ , he says, challenging, but who he's challenging, he doesn't know.

  
_ Biromantic asexual _ , he tries, and then wrinkles his nose and kicks the drywall right beside his mirror. Stupid words.

  
Words are all he's good at, and they've always been enough, until the one — the two, but the important one — he most needs to say, and he suddenly can't speak.   
Can't speak at all, so he doesn't. He pours his entire soul into the document open on his screen, the lights illuminating his bleary eyes, a half-eaten burger cold from sitting beside him for three hours as the clock ticks into one in the morning. Doesn't speak as he types, and his shoulders sag in relief at the total lack of noise, at the clicking of his fingers flitting over the keys on his laptop and the darkness that swallows the outdoors. At the protective bubble cast by the neon lights at Pop's that keeps the darkness at bay.

  
He drowns in the lightness in his chest, or maybe he floats. His throat is dry from lack of use.

  
Jughead says seventeen words from when he enters Pop's to when he leaves. He counts.

  
"Hi, Pop." Two.

  
"Cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake, thanks." Six.

  
"Thank you," when his order comes. Two more.

  
"I'm great, and it's amazing, like always," when Pop asks how he's doing, how the food is. Seven.

  
Jughead says seventeen words in nine hours. None of them are "I'm asexual."

  
He swallows those with his milkshake.

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading about my feelings,,, i mean jughead's feelings,,, thank you anyway you can find me on tumblr [@justcuzfandoms](http://justcuzfandoms.tumblr.com/) or [@vivilevone](http://vivilevone.tumblr.com/) cheers


End file.
